ah ma & leukemia caregiver update

The woman was BANNED from Ah Ma’s place because she catnapped a kitten held hostage by that incorrigible hoarder.

So she kept away while Ah Ma fumed and hissed. (The kitten has since been adopted.) It looked safe to resurface again this week although Ah Ma, as befuddled as she is, remembered. Quite surprisingly, she only asked the other volunteers if the woman was there to take anymore of her kittens. They said no and they all moved on from there - Ah Ma back out to her favourite coffeeshop and the volunteers back to work on the cockroaches.

And it wasn’t even a surprise to find Ah Ma with 2 more kittens.



It’s tempting but the woman will try to accumulate more brownie points before pulling another catnap. After all, there is no end to the supply as long as people in the neighbourhood treat Ah Ma as a dumping ground. Since the start of the clean-up - 13 new kittens - 1 dead, 5 rehomed. The rest are where they are but thriving at least.


They headed over to the leukemia sufferer with 30+ cats after Ah Ma’s. The situation was already very much under control with most of the old furnishings cleared out and adult cats sterilised.

The old auntie was tired, overwhelmed, almost resigned. One kitten, degenerated to skin on bones, had to be rushed to the hospital. The others were in fairly good shape but teary. In her state, the soul is willing but the flesh is weak. She is just not able to keep up with the care the little ones need right now and we are desperately seeking new homes for these sick babies.





As soul-gutting as these cases are, it is hard to be upset with these old caregivers turned hoarders. No one taught them any better. And they themselves suffered enough for it. So I save my wrath for the ones not sick, not old, just dim, who cling on to archaic ideas that cats must roam and that neutering is evil and immoral.

On one of her trapping days, the woman had to fight off a teen who insisted one of the trapped cats is his. When it roams, pal, it is fair game. She offered free sterilisation for his other 2 cats. He said no. She shrugged. She will get them on their next wandering.

That makes 15 new young cats discovered, caught and sterilised this month alone. 50 and counting since January in a 10-block area. Half of them from homes. It’s hard to reconcile sometimes why we have let other people’s responsibility become our own. But in cat welfare, their problems often become yours. After all, if they are not sterilising, they are either a hoarder or a chronic abandoner and some one has to pick up their pieces eventually. We can at least take heart that some people are coming to their senses before it is too late.

And quite unexpectedly, they become your newfound cat welfare neighbourhood watch. This one-week old kitten was dumped next to a dustbin wrapped in a tissue and saved by our neighbour’s 7-yr old daughter.


It is with the vet, fighting for a chance on this callous earth.

How you can help:
* Donate cat food.
* Foster or adopt a kitten.
* Sponsor the medical fees for the 2 hospitalised kittens.

animal hoarding in Singapore

City density does have its advantages. No animal hoarder has been left isolated and undiscovered long enough for the situation to spiral out of complete control. Usually an irate neighbour does everyone a service by blowing their horn.

Proximity to neighbours aside, it is probably also a reflection of our society that hoarders are kept from their irreversible slide from eccentricity to psychosis by their own tenuous but indissoluble family ties, and our wide-reaching government mechanisms. Their situations have hardly escalated to the kind of horror and devastation that are reported in bigger, more far-flung countries.

At least as far as we know.

Animal hoarding traits and types

Pet News Examiner Helena Sung provides an inventory of animal hoarding traits in her article What is animal hoarding? Psychological profile of a hoarder. They are used here to make a comparison of our two recent cases:


Yesterday, the Seletar Hills multi-cat home was featured in The New Paper. Are they borderline hoarders? It is hard to say without insight into their situation. But certainly the widely reported stench is worrying.

In most cases, hoarder caregivers are dealing with what the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium identifies as an Overwhelmed Caregiver. Their self-esteem is linked to their role as caregiver. They have some awareness of their situation, have problems triggered by change in circumstances and yet are unable to resolve them effectively. This could happen to any caregiver, even the woman, and this is the category that Auntie falls under.

According to a HARC report, “the overwhelmed caregiver is more likely to respond to a softer, more therapeutically-oriented approach. S/he has greater insight that the situation is out of control, and may actually find some relief at the prospect of help and downsizing.” Also, threat of action from the authorities may be sufficient to reduce the likelihood of repeat offending.

Ah Ma is trickier. She leans towards being a Rescuer Hoarder, whose mission to rescue leads to compulsion. She takes an active rather than passive role to acquisition and believes she is the only one who can care for them. She also has an extensive network of enablers - neighbourhood people who think she is the best resort to leaving kittens and cats on the street and even compensates her with little gifts and donations for her ‘work’.

If Ah Ma’s case is anything to go by, verbal persuasion, even threat of action from authorities, is unlikely to be effective with this type of hoarder. They are paranoid and they do not take kindly to criticisms. Caregivers need to spend time and energy to gain their trust, usually by injecting large doses of flattery about their compassionate nature and tireless work.

The last type of hoarder we hope never to encounter. The Exploiter Hoarder is sociopathic, lacks empathy for people and animals, lacks guilt and remorse and has a need to control.

Local animal hoarding situation

No one has as yet looked into the local animal hoarding problem in any great detail. Perhaps there are nuances unique to our society. Certainly, we need to build up a set of tried and true intervention methods that works in this country. Currently, there are at least 5 cases (update: 7 cases) surfaced and handled by caregivers. With a growing aging population, increasing uncertainty of a globalised economy and widespread breakdown in family bonds, we can expect more cases ahead.

HARC recommends a multi-disciplinary approach that focuses the law, law enforcement, animal welfare organizations health department and social service agencies on this issue.

Right here, right now, there are just HDB by-laws, eviction letters and amateur caregivers. IMH has no answer, social services have no clue. Govt agencies have but two solutions, removal of animals or removal of said person and animals. Nothing is halting the hoarder's mental deterioration nor stopping the hoarder from repeat offending, leaving little room for preventing the suffering of the animals except with the promise of death.

A preliminary guide to hoarder intervention in Singapore

Ideally, hoarders are reconnected with their families when their situation improves. This is the case with Auntie, whose sister and niece's family have come to visit after the intervention.

In Ah Ma’s case when reconciliation is a long rocky road, the burden on the befriending caregiver is a big one. As these hoarders largely fall into the elderly or needy boxes or both, it is not unreasonable to expect involvement by befrienders, social workers, psychologists and counselors to reach a shared commitment to this problem. Yet none has been forthcoming.

Until they are, we need more Jaimes and Janets in Singapore. If you think you can fit into one of the roles below, please come stand with the giants and bring hope to these lonely suffering lives, on two legs and on four.

hoarder crisis averted – for now

It was inevitable. Our old hoarder neighbour got her eviction letter.

The woman negotiated with HDB to give her time to help resolve the situation, namely, the smell that caused an entire floor of residents to band together crying for blood. They gave her a week. Deadline: Today.

First visit

The flat had not had a change of air in years. There was no moving air as every single window was shut to keep the cats in and prying eyes out.

Both kitchen and yard sinks were clogged.

While the walls and tiles were yellow with age, the space at first glance did look tidy and neat but for the bits of cat biscuits scattered by moving paws. The old woman is a cleaner and really, no one can fault her for not cleaning her flat. She sweeps and she mops relentlessly. Unfortunately, she only cleans what she can see.

And no one taught her anything about cat litter. The cats were given a large metal cage, encrusted over the years with rust and dried shit. It had an unwieldy bottom tray that on the day of the woman’s first visit, was inch deep in cat urine. No litter, not even newspaper to soak it up.

The woman then inspected the toyogo boxes. In every one of them were pools of age old urine seeped through when the cats had good sense to avoid their designated litter space for greener pastures. Obviously, these boxes had not been opened for years as the old woman had no idea!

The woman’s nickname at Ah Ma’s is “Chu Liu Xiang” for being able to withstand the worst smells. This time, the woman’s eyes and nose went on strike with water pistols.

The cats

The old woman started with two and they bred to double digits. Fed primarily on Friskies, they are nonetheless all healthy, full-figured with thick coats.


But the woman witnessed the heartbreaking sight of a mother rejecting her babies. The old woman had to chase after her with the newborn, only to be rebuffed. One had already died and it looked like this one would not survive the night either. The place was no longer conducive for newborns and the mother knew it before the old woman did.

So intervention could not have come too soon and the cats were sterilised in a week-long mass logistical exercise. Three were pregnant.



It was apparent even to the old woman that she could not cope with this many cats so she released some of her cats downstairs under the auspices of our TC officer and our cat feeding community.

They are terrified of course but they will be looked out for. Whitey and Orange took turns to shield each other from loud noises.

The clean up

The grills went up on the windows for air.

Out went the cage. They saved what they could from the toyogo boxes, including some rather nice glassware and crockery, and chucked the rest. It’s a good thing this old woman is not the stubborn ox that Ah Ma is, adamant on keeping every shred of her croach-infested human history.

The TC cleaners came for the old rusted fridge and the rotten kitchen cabinet.

The plumber came, the painter came.

It was something the old woman never imagined. That she could have strangers come into her flat and it would be ok.



Although these two kitties were none too happy with the invasion!

The neighbours

The neighbours also came to look in on the commotion. One thought the woman was moving in.

It was a good opportunity to ask them for their understanding of the old woman’s situation. Obviously, no one knew she was alone with no children, looking after a retarded brother.

They in fact, came to their own conclusion that it was not possible to take away all the old woman’s cats without causing her much pain and suffering and finally only asked that the situation with the smell be resolved.

One neighbour even spoke up to say that even though she was affected, she would not complain against a lonely old woman, causing some sheepish looks from the others.

All in all, the situation still needs to be carefully monitored to assuage neighbourly frayed nerves. The HDB officer is giving her a second chance and we need to cherish it.

continuing stroke of luck with new TC officer

We have a new TC officer and she is a cat-lover! There has been some complaints about the number of community cats in the estate but she lets it be known that the TC abides by the general rule that sterilised cats will not be removed.

The sun is finally shining on our estate.

But the area she is referring to is a problematic one that keeps us busy catching and sterilising every few months. There must be at least one chronic breeder upstairs if not more. The officer has spotted kittens in one of the corridors and the woman will hopefully be able to follow the lead this time to the culpable unit.

The woman also reconnected with a feeder who discovered an old hoarder in the neighbourhood. The old cleaner lives with her mentally challenged brother and 20 cats, although the number can’t be confirmed as the old woman opens her door only enough to speak through it. Even so, the putrid stench can fell a grown man. Only seasoned cat aunties like the woman and the feeder are able to stand their ground without so much as an involuntary nose twitch as they coax the old woman to let them sterilize and install grills for much-needed ventilation.

They met minor success when the old woman agreed to neuter her male cats. The whole experience brought forth geriatric tears as she passed the cats out to the woman one by one. It’s a start. She has still to relent on the females and help in cleaning and grilling. At least there will be no more new litters for now.

These are the small victories that the woman keeps her eyes on when the decision to fund cat welfare efforts becomes more complex in our present economic climate. Yet all the more, it calls for dedication and determination from volunteers and sponsors to stay the course. It will really be a crying shame if we let our collective labours be undone by a prolonged but ultimately temporary bad situation.



Ginger needs you!

rule no. 5 - don’t balk at their poverty

it is a shabby place with little creature comforts but there is nothing to despise, to pity or to be ashamed of here.

this is the kind of simplicity and pride that ah ma’s own children, closer to our generation, cannot embrace and shrink away from. maybe in the name of progress, maybe of conformity but mostly of this insane crippling quality called ‘face’.

but ah ma soldiers on. and she is laughing in our powdered faces. her home, with just that modest injection of human connection, is now one that rings of laughter, playful antics, new friends and romance.

you really can’t take away anything from anyone who doesn’t want to give it.


ah ma with ah orh gia


heng heng & mi mi the dog


heng heng the self-appointed protector of the weak and the small


ah orh was found tied with 4 other cats to ah ma's gate last month. it hurt her but ah ma released them downstairs. clever ah orh would not budge and becomes one of the family


cheeky little ah orh gia



ah ma's favourites - mi mi the cat & ni ni


tua tau in retirement

slow recovery

the 2 white ones are out of danger but white grey and black curly are still battling for their sight. even with the reduced swelling, what we can see of the eye is cloudy... :(

geriatric robin hood

these months the woman spent at the old hoarder lady’s has been akin to falling down a rabbit hole into another world. just when she thought she had ah ma’s world all figured out, she throws her another surprise or two .

chatting with the ah ma while cleaning, jaime translated for the woman that she was happy that after many years of silence, her youngest son showed up and gave her pocket money. things did seem to be looking up. her other son, an ex-convict, has also been consistently working and close to getting his taxi license with jaime and janet’s help and encouragement.

then ah ma asked for money again. when they had lunch with her at her favourite kopitiam, they figured out why she is always short when she consistently receives money from several sources: her daughter, jaime and janet and some kind people in the neighbourhood.

they saw ah ma give a substantial sum of money on the side to the coffee shop cleaner, a mildly autistic middle-aged man who is also her errand boy when she needs help with the heavy lifting. the poor guy was always getting an earful from the volunteers because he is the one who gives ah ma her constant supply of chicken heads for the cats!

as it is, he is the sole provider for his elderly mother and a severely incapacitated sister. the kopitiam stall owners help him out by giving him work and food and a little extra collection from each stall every month. then last week, a con-woman came along and cleaned him out with her cheap promises.

so ah ma gave him an ear lashing and what money she had. they already knew she was her own one-woman soup kitchen in the neighbourhood. a motley bunch of people would crawl out of the woodwork everyday to take their meals with her at the kopitiam and she would pay. the volunteers thought she was probably lonely and needed the company but they could not have been more wrong. the instinct that compels her to take in all those sad animals is exactly the same as what compels her to spread what little she has around.

and she is smart about it. ah ma has no qualms taking, begging and even defrauding the haves just so she can give to the have-nots, like some kind of geriatric robin hood. she is also the kopitiam mafia, so luck to the con-woman if she shows up again!

___________________________

in another twist of this wonderland tale, someone left ah ma four kittens this week and they all suffer severe conjunctivitis. the woman has convinced herself and all of us that we have NO CHOICE but to offer them the hospitability of our utility room so here they are depriving us of our strategic neighbourhood look-out point, our vital evil plan headquarters above the wardrobe and sleep.

two have found adopters and two will go on the adoption boards as soon as they are pretty again.


get well soon kiddos and we will be glad to see you out of here!

joo chiat auntie

another old cat auntie has fallen on desperate times. a fire gutted hers and three other shophouses along joo chiat road, nearly burning her to death and taking away the lives of some 12 cats.

we can only imagine the trauma of this experience for the joo chiat auntie and her remaining animals. some of the cats are now in various stages of recovery. one dog is dying from smoke inhalation and exhaustion.

the woman spoke to the volunteer who has been helping this joo chiat auntie for the past 15 years. it is good people like her who have helped kept the sanity in this situation and gotten supplies enough to cobble up a decent existence for the auntie and her animals in a short amount of time.

but the sense of desperation and despair lingers, compounded by the fact that the auntie’s financial situation has taken an irreversible turn for the worse and finds it almost impossible to sustain the rent and food for the animals in the house as well as the ones on the streets that she dutifully feeds.

any financial help at this point will really make a difference. drop a line to the animal family if you can spare some loose change and we will hook you up.
__________________

this comes close on the tail of the old hoarder lady’s situation, which thankfully, has reached a kind of milestone with the clean-up, sterilization and rehoming. this massive exercise was able to build up a lot of momentum, bringing together a lot of people and seen tremendous results, for the condition of the flat, the many cats that went to good homes and the health of the remaining animals. mostly thanks to jaime, janet and lynn.

it did all end on a strained note over the tragic fate of Ezra. whatever lingering feelings of anguish, hurt and resentment, they do not take anything away from all the good that has come out of this collective effort. Ezra's loving nature won the hearts of all the people who came in contact with him. where he is now, he continues to smile down on ah ma and everyone that has been touched by him.

now, what is left for the living is the less glamourous task of maintenance. weekly visits and cleaning are still very much on the cards to give ah ma a few much needed pairs of extra hands as well as to keep her grounded and connected. there is also the question of where the next supply of cat and dog food will come from that will keep the animals properly fed and off the chicken heads.

heavy on the volunteer's minds right now is the unenviable task of bringing ah ma down to visit the last remaining cat at the vet’s. she screamed when she heard that Big Head will not make it. she has been shouting for the cat ever since.

the volunteers don’t know if bringing ah ma down is a good idea, but if any one of them were in her shoes, this would be what they would want, however unbearable the inevitable parting.

3am call; foster needed

our eccentric neighbour *Wendy* woke us up with a 3am call railing about how her cats are giving her so much stress she is going nuts. in her unkind 3am 'you woke me up for that?!' state, the woman felt that NUTS was the operative word here...

against our advice, Wendy took in one more cat over the 3 she already has in the flat causing one of her existing ones to picket in protest by spraying her furniture any chance it got. at first, Wendy was appealing for the woman to take her offending cat in in hopes that we can toilet train before returning to her. but the cat is not losing its toilet training by accident here. as long as the new cat is in the flat, she is going to be upset and act up.

the woman's advice for Wendy is to give up one of the cats and is actively looking for a loving and patient foster right now who can give this distressed cat a break.
_____________________

this and the case of the old hoarder lady really drive home the fact that more needs to be done for our old and alone. and not just to provide the basics like food, hygiene and shelter. their solitary lifestyles give them no release for their stress and grief and the result is an inward imploding state and a string of irrational bad decisions. gone on long enough, any well-meaning people who want to help can do little more than wade through their woolly self-seeking obstinacy to an uneasy friendship that is frustrating for both parties.

the question the woman would like to ask is, is there a way back from where Wendy and the old lady have wandered?

cleaning out the old hoarder lady's roach-infested cabinet the other day, the woman came across all her old photos, all smeared with roach droppings, and sees a life full of potential, with people, family and events. the old lady was anxious to remind the volunteers not to throw them away. so they are cleaned and stored, all these imprints of people that are no longer there. there was a full-colour laminated A4 photoshop-ed poster of the old lady and her 2 dogs which seemed recent. the old lady told her it was done by friends, but they no longer come to visit.

in the process of cleaning and painting the old lady's flat, the woman has seen both the soft and the cold mercenary side of the old lady, been exceedingly frustrated and been touched. the way forward is still fraught with uncertainties but the transformation of the flat has motivated the old lady to try in her own small ways to maintain it that way. she is also more willing to listen to the volunteers' suggestions and to let go of some of her animals. the woman hopes in her heart that this progress will not be undone by them becoming yet another collection of friends who no longer come to visit.


the woman wonders how many of us would turn out like this? the statistics on the solitary elderly and the mentally volatile are certainly against us.

the best counters the woman can think of are to build up our networks while we can, keep akin to this changing world, and break our hard habit for the material. in the old lady's cabinet are bags, jewelery, liquor, ginseng and clothes from all eras. they probably meant something at some point. now all they do is clog up her world and her mind with their irrelevance.

proud to be a cat auntie

if you have been following the local cat blogs, you might have heard about a hoarding case of an old woman in a roach/maggot-infested 3-rm flat, which she shares with 40 unsterilised cats, 2 dogs and 2 tortoises.

it is rightly called a house of horrors, with black streaked walls, cobwebs, flying roaches, sick animals, dead animals, broken tiles over which animals defecate, everywhere. and in the midst of all these, a stubborn cranky suspicious forgotten old woman.

a couple of cat aunties discovered this and with understandable trepidation but unusual courage, took it upon themselves to help her. jamie and janet, i don't know what classes you did at school, for darn sure, everyone else should have gone to the same!

they started the ball rolling and inspired a lot of people along the way to get involved, the woman being one of them. Babywail's Shelter gives a complete rundown of the events surrounding this case, Lynn being one of the pioneer volunteers herself.

for sure, a case like this draws much attention and on some forums, even on Lynn's blog, there has been some contentious comments. some said that the old woman should be locked up, some said the animals should be taken away from her, some said that the volunteers are taking things into their own hands and the authorities should be involved, one even hoped the old lady will die soon.

our woman won't even be bothered to answer the person who posted that last comment.

her initial reaction from discovering this case was also that the old woman should be in a home as she seems to have a condition, obviously can't take care of herself, much less the animals. but upon meeting the old woman, she did an about turn.

this old woman is far from being non-functioning. and the bond between her and her animals is undeniable. she is frail for sure but lucid she still is, sometimes to the point of sharpness. she understands, but she is unable. she feels, but she is resigned. she doesn't have a mental problem. she is just trapped in the unforgiving state of being old and alone.

the final nail in the coffin of despair would be to take away the last of her freedoms and in particular, the little ones who love her so dearly when everyone else had gone away. she simply needs warm human bodies with friendly faces and willing hands, which in a world population of 6.684 billion, is in short supply.

so until the day we have a solution for the helpless that wouldn't conclusively break their human spirit, no easy decision can be made in a case like this and for better or worse, the authorities and the organisations have stayed distantly silent.

and so the day is saved by a swat team of cat aunties armed with face masks, shower caps, mops and cat traps. partial to both human and animals, they don't choose one over the other and save them all. they fundraised, they scrubbed, they sterilised, they befriended. their special ability? having ears close to the ground (often an excellent source of information), great powers of persuasion (try outtalking a cat auntie), speaks all the local dialects, networks with handy people like taxi drivers and contractors, garang, gung-ho, and most importantly, not afraid to get hands dirty.

it is our hope that when the conditions of the flat and the animals have stabilised and the old woman's trust in people regained, people will come back, family, social workers, befrienders. in the mean time, she has the formidable cat aunties and that is nothing to turn your nose up at.